He is the country's "first mixed-race president." The first black president, Freeman continued, has not as yet "arisen."

So, one wonders, whence stems the popular misconception that Obama is black? Freeman has an answer ready at hand: the president's opponents.

Obama's rivals want to fuel the flames of racial bigotry by emphasizing his African ancestry while ignoring his white background. Yet they conveniently "forget that Barack had a mama" who "was white, very white American, Kansas, middle of America."

Some commentators, particularly those on the right, think that Freeman's remarks should have been met with more outrage. I personally think that incredulity is a more fitting response.

At the 2009 White House Correspondents' Association dinner, the black comedian Wanda Sykes quipped that while she was "proud" that she could characterize Obama as "the first black president," her pride would endure only as long as he didn't "screw up." Once that happened, however, then she would be asking: "What's up with the half-white guy?"

It is difficult indeed not to think that Freeman -- a long-time Democrat and supporter of the president -- isn't animated by the same impulse over which Sykes joked.